
© The Associated Press/TurkpixIn this Sunday, July 29, 2012 photo, Free Syrian Army soldiers gather at the border town of Azaz, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Aleppo, Syria.
Bukulmez, Turkey - Smoking a cigarette outside a Turkish hospital near the Syrian border, a man in a gray gown and flip-flops held his sleeping 2-year-old daughter, Aya. On Aya's right eye was a bandage. In her left hand was a chocolate bar.
Aya lost her eye when she was struck by shrapnel from a shell that also killed her 8-month-old brother, Mohammad, and their mother. The father and daughter were among some 200,000 people who the U.N. said late Sunday have fled Syria's largest city, Aleppo, during days of clashes between rebels and the military.
Aleppo residents, some severely wounded, are packing up belongings and loading them onto cars, trucks and even motorcycles to seek temporary shelter in rural villages and schools outside the city and dusty tents across the border in Turkey.
In interviews with The Associated Press, refugees described a city besieged by government troops and beset by incessant shelling. Food supplies and gasoline are running low and black market prices for everyday staples are soaring.
Comment: For a better idea of what is really going on in Syria please read:
Sott Focus: Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction? by Joe Quinn
Sott Focus: One Man's Suicide Bomber - National Security Building Bomb in Damascus and Bourgas Bus Bomb by Joe Quinn
Sott Focus: Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction by Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley
For additional information read:
Mossad, Blackwater, CIA Led Operations in Homs
Wikileaks: US-led NATO Troops Operate Inside Syria